We present the results of a survey for Cepheid variables in the Virgo
Cluster spiral NGC 4571 using the High-Resolution Camera (HRCam) on the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Our 13 epochs, taken over a span of
$\sim$ 800 days, have typical FWHM of 0.50 arcsec enabling 10\%
photometry to R $\sim$ 24.5 mag. The application of point-spread-function
fitting photometry and both an automated and visual search for
variability has resulted in the identification of several variables.
Three of the most isolated have periods and colors indicative of
Cepheids. These variables have periods in the range of 50 to 90 days
and mean R magnitudes of 24.3 to 23.5 mag.

Adopting an absolute calibration based upon Cepheids in the LMC (m--M =
18.5 $\pm$ 0.08 mag) yields a mean apparent R-band distance modulus of
(m--M)$_A = 30.91 \pm 0.15$ mag, with the uncertainty resulting from
both the finite width of the instability strip and that in the
absolute distance of the LMC. With the assumption that the Cepheids
in NGC 4571 suffer only from Galactic extinction (A$_R$ = 0.04 mag)
we conclude that the true distance is 14.9 $\pm$ 1.2 Mpc. Given that
NGC 4571 is within 2.$^\circ$5 of M 87, is severely stripped of H I, and
has a radial velocity of only 342 km s$^{-1}$ (implying that it is moving
through the cluster core along the line-of-sight), we argue that
this distance is also representative of the Virgo Cluster ``core''

The derived distance is in good agreement with the majority of modern
methods of estimating extragalactic distances and suggests that the
extragalactic distance scale is now established. Adopting a Coma to
Virgo distance ratio of 5.5, from a variety of methods, we find
H$_\circ = 87 \pm 7$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$. The cosmological
implications of this result are briefly discussed.